Amazon and Facebook Staff Warned of Threats To Safety (bbc.com) 355
Amazon and Facebook have warned staff about threats to their safety amid fears of a backlash against "big tech." From a report: Amazon Web Services (AWS) employees were told to "be vigilant" after the firm removed Parler from its web-hosting service. The app is popular with some supporters of President Donald Trump. Facebook staff were also instructed not to wear company-branded clothing in public following its ban of the US President's account. The companies cited the deadly siege on US Congress and civil unrest as reasons for concern. "In light of recent events, and to err on the side of caution, global security is encouraging everyone to avoid wearing or carrying Facebook-branded items at this time," an internal Facebook memo obtained by The Information, said.
According to an email reviewed by Business Insider, AWS vice-president Chris Vonderhaar urged his team to "be safe, be vigilant" and report any unusual activity related to the company's data centres. Amazon "continues to closely monitor civil unrest in the United States," the email added. "We all need to [be] vigilant during this time to keep one another and our facilities safe," the email said. "If you see something, say something -- no situation or concern is too small or insignificant."
According to an email reviewed by Business Insider, AWS vice-president Chris Vonderhaar urged his team to "be safe, be vigilant" and report any unusual activity related to the company's data centres. Amazon "continues to closely monitor civil unrest in the United States," the email added. "We all need to [be] vigilant during this time to keep one another and our facilities safe," the email said. "If you see something, say something -- no situation or concern is too small or insignificant."
Yes, I would quit now. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you run with the criminals, you get caught with the criminals.
Then, I did never.meet somebody who worked at Amazon, who had a choice. So my duty is to make that possible.
And for the record. I am not pro Trump. Can't stand him. I'm pro good guys / humans. That means anti Amazon/Facebook/etc.
P.S.: (Calm down) (Score:2)
No, I'm not saying the pro Trump nutjobs are "good guys". If anyone think sthat, I suggest he stops being such a prejudiced self-fulfilling-prophecy-causing dick. :)
Just for the record.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have any idea what you actually sound like?
Re:Yes, I would quit now. (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't we normally call this sort of thing 'terrorism'? Like, using fear to get the result that you want? 'Run with the criminals get caught with the criminals'? What criminals? Facebook and Amazon may be distasteful, and I think it's *obscene* that Zuck and Bezos have the wealth that they do, but what are you talking about? In what universe is it okay to say, "yeah, you should quit your very ordinary, non-violent job, and if you don't, maybe you had that violence coming"?
I knew several (Score:5, Insightful)
Also while Amazon/FB aren't nice companies, no company that large is. Never ask a man how he made his first million dollars. But you should be asking why you have so much ire for Amazon/FB. I've pointed this out elsewhere, but there are many, many companies who have done much more to make your life worse. There's companies buying up all the housing to rent it back to you. There's ones doing the same with hospitals and slashing staff and care quality. There's ones driving up the price of food, etc, etc, etc.
But Somebody with a lot of money and a lot of media reach wants to make very sure that all your anger is focused on "Internet Companies". They're doing that so they can seize control of the Internet. With your help.
de facto (Score:5, Insightful)
A group of people who are so outraged at being called violent extremists that they immediately default to violent extremist behavior.
If only this could have been predicted. If only someone had warned us.
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/defa... [dhs.gov]
https://fas.org/irp/eprint/rig... [fas.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:de facto (Score:5, Insightful)
The people being arrested for being part of the MAGA Riot aren't "the poor". They're business owners, real estate agents, state legislators, off-duty law enforcement with publicly-paid salaries and guaranteed pensions. It wasn't economics that caused this violent insurrection. It was privilege, lies and entitlement.
Re: (Score:2)
And Shaman Wolf Boy in jail has refused to eat prison food because it isn't organic. As Dave Barry said, I swear I am not making this up.
Though a judge has now ruled that he has to get an organic diet for religious reasons. Oh, the irony here, the MAGA crowd is probably baffled about whether they should celebrate that a Trumpist gets his rights or whether they should mock this liberal hippie-dippie ruling for being too soft on criminals.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh that's a simple one -- just argue that what he did isn't illegal, or even if it is, it shouldn't be. Then they can claim victory on both sides, at least for the moment until these rioters start getting years behind bars.
It doesn't matter how thin the thread or how large the span that must be crossed to reach it, the people pushing this agenda did really well at the last Motivated Reasoning Olympics.
Re: (Score:2)
That happens, with a large enough group, you get a wide variety of people, including those richer and poorer than others. Perhaps some of them just wanted to protest instead of storming a building, some of them may have been sworn officers, and others might be poor. Granted, if you're poor, you probably don't want to side with an anti-poor party, but that's another story.
Re:de facto (Score:4, Insightful)
You have to be kidding me. 18th century France? Really?
The people back then couldn't feed themselves. The cost of bread was outrageous. Taxes were high and didn't benefit the commoners. The non-aristocrats which made up most of the population could be "out voted" by the ruling class.
Last time I checked you could get a loaf of bread for a couple of bucks. Taxes are not high, especially for the lower income earner. Most likely they will pay nothing in taxes. We don't have a ruling class. Citizens own land, if they choose to.
I could go on and on. This is nothing like 18th century France. Life was really hard back then. Nothing like today. You know, people complain cause you can't go out to eat. Oh no, their mocha is not done just right. Yup, just like 18th century France.
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Are you lying? How do they get out of paying sales taxes?
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Depends on the state, lots of states don't have sales tax. But if you think your tax burden is too high due to sales tax take it up with your state, the federal government has no say on sales tax.
Re: (Score:3)
Your lack of historical proportionality is showing.
Skipping covid, things are better than ever before, for food, wealth, and health. This is the result of denying class warfare rhetoric, and its mouthpieces, the handles of control.
Raging takeovers are used by those at the top to become the New Kleptocrats.
Re: (Score:2)
The poor people lashing out keep voting against their own best interests. Like Moscow Mitch and the stimulus money he refused to vote on.
Re:de facto (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a qualitative difference between demonstrations that get out of hand, and armed individuals with intent to kidnap or possibly even kill Congresspeople and the Vice President of the United States. It's the reason your average Confederate soldier was allowed to go home, but Jefferson Davis was arrested and indicted (though pardoned by Andrew Jackson, which, of course, carries with it the acknowledgement by the pardoned person that they are guilty of the crimes they were accused of). Sure, Jefferson Davis never shelled Fort Sumter, or personally marched into battle, but acts of sedition and treason aren't merely about even facilitating burning of state or Federal property or even killing of state or Federal officials, police officers and soldiers, it's about intent.
The people who entered the Capitol Building searching for the Speaker of the House and the Vice President weren't just violent Antifa protesters (those folks are bad enough), they were committing acts of sedition and insurrection against the authority of the United States government, in a blatant and purposeful attempt to interfere with the Vice President, Senators and Representatives in the carrying out of their role in the *peaceful* transition of power. No government can, or should, tolerate such acts, which strike at the very heart of the authority and mandate of the government.
So yes, if Antifa protesters turn into rioters, destroy public and private property and endanger the lives of citizens, police officers and government officials, they should be prosecuted. But when a group of seditionists enter the Congress of the United States of America, which has had held the legislative authority of the several United States since September 5, 1774, they are committing a far more egregious act. There simply is no equivalency.
Re: (Score:3)
The mantra in Minneapolis is that "all" (which really means some) of the destruction was done by white people from out of state and from suburban/exurban areas. The dumb bitch with green hair who can't even keep a part time job at the piercing studio/vape store in the 4th tier suburban strip mall.
It's true to a point, but it glosses over how much destruction there was a presumes that no local community members were involved in looting or destruction, which wasn't true from what I saw on TV.
But at least loc
Credible threat? (Score:3)
I looked and saw no credible threat described, other than "dangerous idiots are dangerous, so be careful."
This is nothing new. Amazon has new employees or contractors watch a video simulating a terrorist attack on one of their buildings, and offers advice on what to do in that case (all rather common sense). The chance of this happening is near zero, but might as well be safe.
I'm sorry, but this is a big nothing-burger, except it's political in nature, and so gets people riled up.
Re:Credible threat? (Score:4, Interesting)
I worked in the AWS SOC for five years, the data centers are designed with this sort of thing in mind (some more than others, depending on location), and there are occasional Red Team attempts at intrusion to test. Fortunately when the opposition is not much smarter than a squirrel, and just about as easily distracted, any alert isn't likely to last long.
History Lesson (Score:2)
Re:History Lesson (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it a sleeping giant? Oooh, 74 million voted for Trump. But not all of them are Trumpists. With the crowd that was fervently pro-Trump enough to drive many hours and stand in the awful DC winter weather, which is a small fraction already, only a small fraction of that crowd were involved in invading the capitol, and only a small fraction of those who invaded the capitol were engaged in vandalism or violence.
Sure, the Trump Rallies look like big deals, but they're not really, they're staged events and there are many repeat attendees and you see many of the same faces at each event. But you pack a stadium - so what? That doesn't make them the majority, and they don't represent all the Trump voters, they're only that fraction that are fervent enough to buy a ticket and stand in long lines. And having rallies in the first place even when not campaigning... wow that just seems like something straight out of a failed African state. The fervent believers think that they're in the majority but really they are not.
But... you don't need a sleeping giant to awaken to cause havoc. The problem here is the slightly unhinged guy to show up at a state capitol with an assault rifle. But the sleeping dwarfs are already awake and looking for a way to go out in a blaze of infamy.
Re: (Score:3)
Our election laws, are fucked. You know it, and I know it, and we both know why they are purposely fucked.
If your state's election laws are bad, call up your representatives in your state legislature and get them to fix it. If other states' election laws are bad, that's up to them to deal with; it's really no concern of yours.
Re:History Lesson (Score:4, Interesting)
Acting Like Toddlers (Score:2)
Some of these people are acting just like a 2 year old who's just had the marker ripped out of his hand after doodling on the living room wall.
Given their allegiance to the Toddler In Chief, this is not surprising.
Re: (Score:2)
You should see the crocodile tears flow when they were kicked off an airline for not wearing masks and being belligerent.
Pretty Rich! (Score:2)
Can you image... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) if Amazon, twitter and facebook had banned all 'conservative' Islamic sites where people incited violence against, Infidels ( show beheadings, actual wars etc.) .talked about violent resistance to the government.
2) if they had done the same with all the BLM crowd , every time someone showed or talked about burning down a building or a Representative *cough Maxine*
Reality is either one of those would have put them in A LOT more danger then this move.
*Disclaimer, no fan of Trump and all that. Just sayin.
Remember Cambridge Analytical? (Score:3)
I still remember the outrage at Cambridge Analytical (and I was one of the outraged) and all the calls to heavily control, legislate what these platforms can do and even break then up. Now, a lot of those outraged, are praising those same companies and clapping that they have become judge, jury and executioner.
Since I'm not an hypocrite, I maintain my position now: these platforms must stop doing whatever they please. What about you?
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I pray this will not happen... but if employees got hurt because of what the company did, employees will sue and they will sue hard.
Yeah, any supposed lawsuit like that will be about as well-grounded in fact as the ones Guiliani keeps getting laughed out of court over.
It'd be like suing a girl who turned down one of the Columbine shooters for a date.
Re: (Score:2)
If far right fucktards injure a Facebook employee because they're pissed that Facebook gave Trump the boot, providing Facebook didn't in some way put the employee in danger (ie. by somehow leaking the employee's home address), there is no vicarious liability there. If that were the case, every reporter beaten up while on the beat could sue the media outlet they worked for. Another absurd premise.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably not (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, dear lord, listen to yourself. You're heavily implying that we should let extremists get away with inciting violence because if we don't they'll commit acts of violence.
Stephen Colbert said it better than me: "We don't negotiate with terrorists because we just give them whatever they want"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm...yet they tolerate it for far leftist groups, and haven't pulled the plug on the more radical side of BLM or Antifa for example?
Its ok for them to promote violence and extr
Re:If their own employees sue (Score:5, Interesting)
Dude, just stop. You're in a very, very deep hole, under an outhouse. And you just keep digging. This is serious now, and the adults are stepping in to put a stop to it, finally. The FBI has already made over 100 arrests. Anyone who was at the capitol is going away for a long, long time.
These are the consequences for your actions. They are just and right, and they will not be appealed. The side of justice and freedom will only be pushed so far, and you've crossed the line. In fact, the blowback has only just begun. Expect it to get much worse for you terrorists because freedom loving Americans have finally had enough.
No, more threats won't stop the wheels of justice. It will just make things worse. You need to shut up, take a seat in the corner, and think about what you've done and who you really are.
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I pray this will not happen... but if employees got hurt because of what the company did, employees will sue and they will sue hard.
That seems like a really hard lawsuit to win.
Re:Kinda expected (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesus Christ. No private interest owes anyone else a platform. The First Amendment applies to government, not to private interests. You don't have to put up anyone's sign on your front lawn, and Amazon doesn't have to give Parler space on the front lawn either. This conflating the private space with the public space is tiresome. Amazon has First Amendment rights as well.
Considering what we know about Parler's actual funder and about the quality of code and security Parler used, beyond not wanting to even indirectly facilitate sedition, Amazon is probably doing everyone a favor by forcing Parler of their network.
Why should I be concerned if a private company decides who it wants to do business with, and who it doesn't? Tell me exactly whose inalienable rights have been breached because a private company terminated a contract with another private company? Providing it isn't the government walking in and forcing Amazon to terminate the contract, this is purely a civil dispute. The US wasn't founded on the premise that everyone's private property can be used for communal purposes. You put your soap box in the town square and the local police come and haul your ass away, yeah, that concerns me. You put the soap box in my living room and I throw you out of my house, then you may feel slighted, but that's tough shit. Go find some other living room to put your soapbox in.
Re:Kinda expected (Score:5, Insightful)
I do agree that none of this is a 1st Amendment issue.
But -- I am kind of concerned that this poisons the well a little for legitimate discussions about whether "1st Amendement" free speech matters when all the possible platforms and venues are privately held. Standing on a wooden box in the park doesn't cut it anymore. We've been down this road with shopping malls, some of which exist thanks to public subsidies of one kind or another, yet the courts ruled they were private spaces and you couldn't protest or hand out leaflets in them. I think there is room about whether we should broaden the definition of public spaces and public accommodations.
In the case of Parler, there is idea that real freedom of speech involves owning your own printing press, and it's kind of like Amazon's even refusing to sell them a printing press. I'm not defending them, but we are in this weird world where there vanishingly few ways to realistically build a scalable IT service without an enormous cap-ex. I don't know, but I have some ideas that outside of AWS and Azure, there's probably not any other cloud providers capable of providing the kind of rapid scaling needed for a multi-million user web service.
Maybe they really should have thought deeper on this and saw the risks of de-platforming and invested big bucks into a physical data center presence (distributed over many providers) so they couldn't easily be de-platformed, especially since they likely knew that they could become so controversial.
I think there's other risks, too. This "its a private business exchange" logic seems kind of problematic. Why doesn't that work if I own a restaurant and want to discriminate? Can I deny meals to people because they are Trumpers, but not other classes? This kind of loops back into some of the questions I have about the unique capabilities of large-scale providers like AWS. Because their product is so dominant and there's not a realistic replacement, maybe Amazon should be held to a "public accommodations" standard where they can't deny hosting to someone unless their use is explicitly illegal. Much in the same way a restaurant can't refuse service to someone over race or gender.
None of this is to say I side with Parler, Trump or any of these other right wing idiots, I just think the rush to embrace "PRIVATE PROPERTY TRUMPS FREE SPEECH" while accurate loses some of the nuances of freedom of speech and the risks of giant corporations owning everything.
Re:Kinda expected (Score:5, Insightful)
If a Trump supporter comes into my restaurant, eats a meal and leaves without a fuss, then no, I don't think he or she should be asked to leave. If a Trump supporter comes into my restaurant and attempts to use it for the purposes of insurrection or sedition, then absolutely I should have the right to immediately ask them to leave.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
But come on, after a lethal violent insurrection in which the Capitol building was sacked?
The slippery slope here is not very steep.
Parler already has another host (Score:2)
There's no shortage of people to sell you the press as long as you've got the cash. None of these businesses have any scruples. They just don't want the bad press associated with the extreme right wing.
As for siding or not siding with Parler, that's the p
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No, this isn't a 1st Amendment issue. Perhaps it ought to be, but Amazon isn't an arm of the government, so the current 1st Ammendment doesn't cover it.
FWIW, in the 1960's A. J. Liebling wrote that the power of the press belongs to the man who owns one. (I thought that quote was a lot older...dating back to at least Hearst and probably to Franklin, but that's not what Wikipedia says.) This is just a modern elaboration on that theme...with a bit of monopoly power thrown in.
Re: (Score:3)
There is an additional issue here. Amazon ropes you in with a lot of proprietary technologies to use their systems. It is very difficult to pick up an Amazon infrastructure and move it to Azure, or you're own distributed systems. Amazon didn't just shut Parler down. They invalidated years of development efforts.
Re: (Score:2)
You are so right about that. It's not like a private business has to, oh I don't know "bake someone a wedding cake" right? The left in government are working on the 2nd amendment because they can push that all the way to the courts and some of what they do to it will stick. They won't touch the 1st amendment of course. They've subcontracted that out to their pals at Apple, Amazon, facebook, Google, and twitter. We all just spent an entire year watching BLM and friends organize riots across the country on tw
Re: (Score:3)
Um, the Supreme court came down in favor of the baker. The baker can't be forced to decorate a cake in a manner that violates his religious freedoms. But he can't simply refuse to bake cakes. Do you even understand what happened, and how acts of sedition and insurrection cannot be in any way be made equivalent to a baker being asked to put two grooms on a cake.
Re: (Score:2)
And further, that ruling actually justifies the actions of Amazon, Facebook and Twitter. No, they can't refuse service to you just because you're a Proud Boy. But they sure the hell have the right to kill your account if you use their platform to disseminate your views, or worse, try to plan acts of sedition or terrorism.
Re:Kinda expected (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should I be concerned if a private company decides who it wants to do business with, and who it doesn't?
These types of platforms have become one of our main avenues for political discourse. As such, they need to be subjected to common carrier rules. This is required because having a functioning democracy requires open and honest debate. As for your statement, need I remind you of this famous poem:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Do you really need to wait for your pet cause to get censored by oligarchs before you understand the ramifications of these actions?
Doesn't matter (Score:2)
This is how the law operates. https://i.redd.it/uazhmn3neta6... [i.redd.it]
Re: (Score:3)
You mean something like the Fairness Doctrine? Oh, that's right, the conservatives got rid of it.
I wouldn't equate people violently trying to overthrow the results of a presidential election with the victims of Naz1 persecution. One of these things is not like the other.
We intentionally excluded them from common carrier (Score:2)
Take away Section 230 and you'll see complete corporate censorship on all platforms. That's because the rich will use lawsuits to control what Twitter and Facebook let you say, as opp
Re:Kinda expected (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it couldn't be more relevant, as censorship is unbelievably dangerous to democracy regardless of who's doing it. We require free and open discourse for two reasons:
1) If you feel the need to control political thought, there's often something seriously flawed with your political position.
2) We allow groups like the KKK free expression as it allows us an opportunity to confront and discredit their ideas. Without it, these types of ideas are free to spread without being confronted.
And your phone company can't cut you off for expressing your political views, despite them owning the wiring, towers, etc. through which you communicate because of common carrier rules.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have a constitutional or legal argument, I'm willing to entertain it. If you want to conflate my front yard with the street running along it, I don't find your argument terribly convincing. And since none of these companies are viewed as common carriers, explicitly so, there goes one legal argument.
And these ideas have always been around, and I'd argue it was far better when they were distributed in plain brown paper wrapping so the subscribers could keep the fact that they were members of the local
Re: (Score:2)
If you have a constitutional or legal argument, I'm willing to entertain it. If you want to conflate my front yard with the street running along it, I don't find your argument terribly convincing. And since none of these companies are viewed as common carriers, explicitly so, there goes one legal argument.
Do you also argue against legalizing marijuana by saying "but it's an illegal drug!"?
Re: (Score:3)
But we're not arguing against legalization of pot, we're arguing as to whether the Constitution should be amended to remove First Amendment protections from platforms and force them to put any kind of site or any kind of post without restriction. Because the First Amendment restrictions explicitly apply to government, and explicitly do not apply to private citizens or groups of them. I can't walk into a Catholic Church are start giving sermons on how great Satan is, I can't walk on to your front lawn and st
You can't have free and open discourse (Score:2)
A line has been crossed. Some lev
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is that the Large Monopolies are defacto public spaces.
Not when it's so easy to set up your own (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You realize people can basically always say that about anyone seeking change right and from the perspective of people attached the incumbent system it always appears as you describe "these revolutionaries have no respect for the law/order/system" if you don't think to hard.
During the civil rights movement a bunch of African-Americans staging a sit-in some place; probably seemed a lot like them trying to bend some business to their will and violating various segregation laws. This time the show is on the o
Re: (Score:2)
Those that participated in civil disobedience sit-ins knew that it was illegal and knew they were breaking the law and knew that they were almost certainly going to go to jail. This was the strategy also used by Ghandi. They didn't whine afterwards that it was unfair to arrest them or try to get off on a technicality. The entire point was to be public about it, have the media see and report on it, and let the rest of the public know about the injustice. And those who were arrested in the civil rights er
Re: (Score:3)
There are also a certain amount of deliberate infiltrators as well. Boogaloo Boys were caught preparing molotov cocktails that they intended to throw at police during the BLM protests to get them to to fire into the crowd. Many of the instigators of the looting have turned out to be wingnuts diametrically opposed to the BLM message. Now they get to paint all of the BLM protests and everyone associated with them with the same broad brush.
Re: Kinda expected (Score:2, Interesting)
"It's a private *anything*" never qualifies...
This is a democatic country. You are enjoying the military police, counter-spying, firefighters, healthcare, roads, water, electricity etc because of us, the people.
You can choose to treat cititens however you like.
And we can choose to cut utilities, have everyone look somewhere else when looters light your servers on fire, and rush you with swat teams and the national guard and ban you... from the country.
Jeez. Literally monkeys, crows and even more primitive l
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, not even a little bit. It won't be a civil war, it will be 100s of idiots who lash out earn themselves life in prison and a very vocal few hundred thousand that slink away while the other 300 million think 'what the fuck was wrong with them'.
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Re: (Score:2)
Oh no it's the Gravy Seals! Run, it's Y'all Qeda and the Yeehawdists! Meal Team Six is on the hunt!
Oh, I'm quaking in my boots.
Clown.
Re: (Score:2)
Oooh, tough words from someone so cowardly they're too frightened to even post with a pseudonym. We're all trembling now!
Stop the free speech nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, Amazon/Google/Apple are shitty companies, for many reasons. Their disdain for free speech is just one of them.
I'll agree they are shitty, but not for any reason you suggest. It's a private platform and there are many alternatives, as you pointed out. Apple, Google, and Amazon have no more duty to host your content than WalMart does to sell your stuff. They are not in the business of free speech nor ensuring controversial opinions get heard. Just stop it with these arguments.
No one screams cancel culture when WalMart decides your merchandise is no longer profitable to sell. They are ad, device, and retail companies...if I were them, I'd avoid controversy all together. Apple wants to sell you a new phone or watch, not be a participant in the public debate. These violent extremists are not getting deplatformed for political reasons. Tech companies are sociopaths with no ideals. If they had any, they would have cut ties with the MAGA crowd sometime around the sending rapists at the border comments. The far right is getting deplatformed because they are bad for business, pure and simple. So many of us are in the center and just sickened by the violence at the capital. Seeing a confederate flag in the capitol building and seeing officers violently murdered disgusts the moderates, swing-voters, and apolitical to their core...not just liberals or centrists like myself.
MAGA folks, you're toxic. You're bad for for business. You're the buzzkill at the party. Seeing you brag about rushing the capitol and threaten Mike Pence doesn't make me think "Hmm, I want a new Apple Watch...or I could use another Alexa speaker"....it just makes all of us sane people disgusted and quite frankly happy that the private sector acted to deliver consequences where the FBI and police failed.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
At the end of the day a commercial interest has a singular responsibility; and that is to its investors. By demanding that Amazon host Parler, or Facebook and Twitter continue to transmit Trump's communications, what you're really asking them to do is risk their investors' money (not to mention, if any sedition or insurrection charges come out of the nonsense last week, possibly criminal and/or civil liability). If I'm an Amazon investor, what is it exactly I owe the Mercer family? What vast debt, social an
Re: (Score:2)
If you can't get hosting for your website, how do you build your own platform? Does the ISP have to let you install your own server on their rack?
Or do I have to launch my own satellite and then get connected to the Internet?
How much infrastructure do I need to build for my own platform?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
If you're a seditionist, I guess you have to launch your own satellite, or more likely go to a friendly state like Russia where they'll happily allow you turn your website.
Re:Stop the free speech nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
How much infrastructure do I need to build for my own platform?
If you piss off enough people in society, you have to build all of it yourself. Starting to dig for the precious metals needed for your electronics is a decent enough place to start.
You touch on what "I built this" types either don't understand or don't want to admit. Society at large is responsible for 99.99...% of the wealth of every billionaire on the planet. If even just for the protection of property rights modern societies provide. All of that hard work and intelligence and vision doesn't mean anything if you don't have thousands of years of civilization to build on top of. If you piss off society at large, you won't be able to build your own platform. There is just too much to build yourself.
You cannot go it alone in this world. A very small percentage of people can get away with buying some land in the middle of no where to live off the grid, but at some point someone is going to dispute you or your descendants for water rights.
Re: (Score:2)
If you can't get hosting for your website, how do you build your own platform?
Are you kidding? Is this some millennial joke thinking that hosting is a fundamental need to build a platform? Kid the internet existed long before any hosting platform started providing services.
If their ISP cut ties with them, or the government forced them to be de-listed from the DNS then I'll grab my pitchfork and join your little crusade. But seriously, launch a satellite? Do you not understand how the internet works?
How much infrastructure do I need to build for my own platform?
None. You just pay a utility provider for a data connection and BYO infrastructure.
Re:Stop the free speech nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of the day a commercial interest has a singular responsibility; and that is to its investors.
As an aside: that’s a very American point of view. Here in Europe, we learn a different style of management - the St. Gallen model, for example, focuses on a much larger landscape of stakeholders, and most European countries have laws that enforce consideration of a number of stakeholders (employees, customers, society as a whole, unions, etc.).
Re:Stop the free speech nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
That's also not what the SEC says. Bluntly, GP is wrong. The "fiduciary duty" above all else is an American myth.
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At the end of the day a commercial interest has a singular responsibility; and that is to its investors.
Actually there's two responsibilities. To its investor and to the laws of the land. And while I agree with AWS, Apple and Google cutting ties, I'm less agreeable about Stripe doing the same as they only get to do so because they are dodging laws that cover all other financial institutions.
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Not so fast.
I think what people overlook, is that statements like yours above have an inherent right-wing bias. As Americans we didn't perceive that bias, because it was "normal" to all of us. (Sort of like how fish might not realize they're wet.) What I've learned over the past 4 y
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MAGA folks, you're toxic. You're bad for for business. You're the buzzkill at the party. Seeing you brag about rushing the capitol and threaten Mike Pence doesn't make me think "Hmm, I want a new Apple Watch...or I could use another Alexa speaker"....it just makes all of us sane people disgusted and quite frankly happy that the private sector acted to deliver consequences where the FBI and police failed.
I can definitely see that as a reasonable argument for Reddit or Youtube, but I seriously doubt it had anything to do with AWS kicking Parler. AWS is not ad supported.
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I think you're purposely ignoring a few key points... You're not wrong that Amazon, FB and others are private businesses who can pick and choose who they let use their services.
The problem runs deeper.
First, there's the problem that the Internet has evolved into a network where only a relative few tech giants really matter. Anyone can still put up a web server on a small scale. Terms of service from most ISPs don't even allow that if you aren't paying 2x the price for a "business" version of essentially th
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Re:Kinda expected (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I can tell, Trump supporters do not seem to have been silenced. The din is louder than ever, this is the opposite of silence. Speech finds a way to be spoken, even if it's abhorrent and no one wants to hear it. If we could shut up seditious speech this easily we could have shut down child porn in a month, and yet in many decades of effort that is still alive and well.
But I see no disdain for free speech here. Amazon is not mandated to be a megaphone for every crazy in the world. No one can walk into my house and demand to paint their manifestos on my wall. We managed to create civilization and have speech and exchange ideas long before Bezos was ever born. If BLM was banned (and many of those posts were) then the MAGA crowd would cheer and celebrate, but when the extremist side of MAGA gets banned then they freak out. Or in Tucker Carlson's case, continues to be freaking out while broadcasting to millions and millions of people that free speech is dead, and the audience fails to see the irony.
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"Censoring" Trump is a necessary step, but it also clearly shows who had the power to do that. And didn't act earlier.
FWIW, this *is* a difficult question. Should major network connections be public utilities? The reasons why they should and why they shouldn't seem pretty evenly balanced to me, but with equal negatives on both sides. One obvious one is "regulatory capture and suppression of competition". But the networks as currently structured act to amplify unfounded gossip and paranoid suspicions.
Re: (Score:3)
Now that they took down Parler, we shouldn't just be upset about Parler. We should be upset about the probably hundreds of thousands of voices they silenced.
*snip*
Anyway, Amazon/Google/Apple are shitty companies, for many reasons. Their disdain for free speech is just one of them.
Why exactly?
The people on Parler demand the complete destruction of the Constitution.
They demand removal of the very thing granting freedom of speech.
So these people don't mind being denied those rights. They actively demand no one, including them, have the right to free speech.
And they just got it. They don't mind, we don't mind, so what is the problem here exactly?
Re: Such a nice group of people (Score:4, Insightful)
Wade into pool thinking you're doing good...end up raising the temperature. No it's not Facebook's fault alone. But there was a way of acting that would have been more...impedance matched...to the times, and blanket bans aren't it. I get it, everyone is spooked. All the more reason to try to be clearheaded.
Re: Such a nice group of people (Score:4, Insightful)
"raising the temperature" you mean, pissing off the terrorists by banning them? Let's be really clear here. This is a private company, with it's own free speech rights, and property rights. You all need to get real clear, real fast, on what rights you think are important because this shit is going to haunt you forever.
They are clear headed. All the businesses and banks that are banning Trump and his supporters are clear headed. You've left us no choice.
And we will have none of this dog whistle "Nice peaceful business you've got there, shame if anything happened to it" bullshit. If you think someone is in the wrong for "raising the temperature" by refusing to do business with terrorists, you need to rethink your stance bud.
We do not do business with terrorists and those who support them. Congratulations, you've finally united America.
Stop supporting political violence and blaming those who act to protect themselves from it. Admit that you sided with the villains, and pledge to do better.
Re: Such a nice group of people (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me be equally clear: throwing around the "T" word at people who do not espouse or advocate for, agree with, or practice, political violence is going to raise the temperature by antagonizing people who would otherwise be on your side.
Some more clarity: one-sided denunciations of extremist right wing violence coupled with the denial, dismissal, and occasional celebration of left-wing extremist violence is going to raise the temperature by giving otherwise "normie" people reason to believe they are under threat. This belief tends to be reinforced when they start to think the police won't be there to help them if the mob should come down their street. Tell me all you want that the CHAZ really was a summer of love and that Portland was a fox news bogeyman, but you must at least admit that a lot of the progressive left was pushing hard for "defund the police." That makes people scared. The more people you scare, the more of the marginal types are going to peal off from the mainstream and go down the rabbit hole that leads to violence. This statement isn't a threat, or an excuse; it's an observation.
The conclusion I draw from that observation is that it is unwise to act in a way that fills people's heads with paranoid thoughts at a time when many other prominent actors are doing the same. Trump pushing his nonsense after he lost was unwise. Big tech and big news banning any questions about the wisdom of mass mail in balloting along with the conspiracy stuff is also unwise: it makes it look like a coverup is happening.
If times were good, it would probably roll off everyone's back. But times are not good: tens of millions have lost their jobs as a direct result of sometimes-overzealous public health measures. The suppression of dissent re: the wisdom of those public health measures by those same media and tech companies again makes it look they're trying to get away with something. The fact that those public health measures were not discussed at all re: leftist protests and riots this past summer adds to this perception.
I'm not excusing sloppy thinking. But I am explaining to you how this pattern of behavior can set some people off. Add the prospect of shunning and economic death to the mix, and you've given even more people the idea that they have nothing to lose. This is dangerous. No you can't control how people behave and react, but you can try to read the room and refrain from filling people's heads with paranoid thoughts.
Re: Such a nice group of people (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me be equally clear: throwing around the "T" word at people who do not espouse or advocate for, agree with, or practice, political violence is going to raise the temperature by antagonizing people who would otherwise be on your side.
I'll start by absolutely condemning the people who were violent and looting around BLM protests. Just to be absolutely clear. I made a bit longer answer in another comment recently. Let me also agree that "defund the police" is an unfortunate slogan almost to the level of negligent stupidity. Despite that, "defund the police" is a legitimate political expression by people, many of whom have a reasonable meaning (try to get better social services to reduce crime rather than using hard measures) and should not be discussed in the same discussion as terrorists.
Having said that, coming in like you have in answer to a post like you did, it sounds like you are trying to defend the terrorists by deflecting from the specific points that spun made in the grandparent post that businesses should not give in to terrorism. Now, could you please just clearly and specifically condemn a) Donald Trump b) those Trump supporters who committed violent acts during the attack on the US Capitol c) people who have knowingly made false claims of election fraud and thereby incited violence.
I don't need you to even condemn the people who believed the lies and are now spreading them. Just the people who originated the lies about election fraud with the aim of dividing Americans.
Re: Such a nice group of people (Score:3, Insightful)
The looting, rioting and burning were not random, but systematic across the country, primarily during peak BLM, as were several attempts to assassinate police. They were not random, but encouraged, even demanded as a response
Various nut jobs screaming it from the rooftops on public TV that they were going to riot etc until they got what they wanted. Local police and the FBI really did very little about that or the rioting.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
"raising the temperature" you mean, pissing off the terrorists by banning them?
Oh bullshit, you know exactly what he means.
BLM and Antifa have been slowly raising the temperature all over the summer, rioting and destroying property and all along the left has been telling us that's just to be expected and what else do you expect of people whose voice isn't being heard?
Then along comes a pro-Trump protest that does less property damage and causes less damage than BLM/Antifa "protests" did over the summer (yes, even including deaths - people died in those riots too), and suddenly THAT is
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What you are missing is their perspective. When it was places they don't live at. Statues of heros they don't hold deer it was 'people do stuff' when its congress the media and congress critters alike were all 'you know I have walked those halls whaaa'
None of this summers unrest was real for them. It was something exciting to watch on TV and fodder to sneer at Trump and lie about it somehow being his fault local and state officials could not maintain order a political game.
This thought was their 'house' as
They had it coming! (Score:2)
"raising the temperature" you mean, pissing off the terrorists by banning them? Let's be really clear here. This is a private company ...
I often see the expression "private company" like there was somehow a large group of companies that are something other than "private"... The truth is all companies operate out in the open and under the eyes of the public. There never has been much privacy for companies. They have a duty to uphold social norms and order just like any citizen and cannot just fuck up our society, because it makes them money.
Twitter, Facebook & Co. have been polarising people from the start to make money off them. All the
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This is on Trump and the Trump cult. Stop trying to deflect. I thought you guys claimed to be all about personal responsibility? Now it's all "But those other kids made me do it!"
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Calling a group of people terrorists is raising temperature, the did it in 9/11 and now there are bunch of people want to not allow Arabs into the US. It is an escalation, if you want a civil war keep going, label and dehumanize the opposition, the only logical outcome of this is more hate.
If you want to calm the situation down you have to remain calm, Most people just want to live their lives this seems like a bunch of name calling and trying to silence the opposition because the other side is just naive,
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Sorry, no. After the trials and the punishment we can have a kumbaya moment. Until then, the gloves are off. Just watch. The US does not negotiate with terrorists. We drone strike them at their weddings. Watch the skies, terrorists. Listen for that knock on your door. It's coming.
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The lawlessness this summer was blown out of all proportion by the right wing propaganda machine. This, on the other hand,, is getting downplayed. It's like a kid saying "Why am I being punished for burning down the school? What about Johnny over there, he wrote on the walls!"
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Let me start by saying I agree with you that violence is totally unacceptable in this or any other discourse and should be the absolute last resort in ANY disagreement. Be it between nations or two people standing in line at the grocery store. But I do take issue with the ban hammer not being used universally and extremely subjectively.
I don't support in any way what occurred at the Capital. I'm also not a supporter of what they believed. However I do believe that the folks that protested peacefully should
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So you support terrorism when you don't get your way. The voters rejected you. The courts rejected your arguments. In fact, your own lawyers would not even make the voter fraud claims in front of a judge, because lying to a judge gets you disbarred.
Then, in a final act of cowardly desperation, your tried to take our congressmen and senators hostage. You tried to assassinate Mike Pence. And you failed, like you fail at everything. Because you are weak. You are losers.
This is how history will remember the Rep
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Hardly. 100 arrests and counting. Everyone you saw in footage at the capitol is already in custody. The FBI does not fuck around.
Tick tock, terrorists. Tick tock.
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What a laugh. There were a few thousand at most. If they had not been aided by Trump's hand picked traitor in chief of the capital police (who Trump has thrown under the bus, and has lost his job) they would not have gotten anywhere. Meal Team Six and the Gravy Seals don't frighten anyone.
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Pee in the pool and no one notices. You can have 1% of the people pee in the pool and no one notices. But add a chemical to the pool that turns the pee a bright red color and suddenly everyone is screaming "They're peeing in the pool, can they do that?!"
Anyway... clear-headed is not an American trait. It's why I support immigration, because we need a fresh influx of people who have seen us from the outside. Someone has to show up and say "you know there's pee in your pool, right?"
Let's blame bad person Sheldon Adelson! (Score:2)
It's a joke, but everyone knows the best "fall guy" is a dead person. Adelson was rich and powerful, so he could have been behind it all. Just a coincidence he died now? There are NO coincidences! ;-)
Anyway, the FP struck me as tangential and unclear, but probably rushed. The "nice group of people" is obviously sarcastic, but at first I wasn't sure which "bad people". Maybe it was businesses that hate to deal with the "nice people" of Facebook and Amazon?
But more likely the FP is talking about crazy people
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No wonder no business wants to deal with their crazy. It's a liability at this point.
Now I feel like I have to visibility requote it. Not such a great FP, but not deserving of the censorship moderation. (It hadn't been modded when I started writing my reaction joke.)